HoustonPress reports Matsu’s infringing tweet called her bartender a “twerp”, and labelled him with a #jackoff hashtag. I wasn’t aware twerp was insulting to anyone outside of Bugs Bunny cartoons, but I can see taking offence to the whole jackoff thing. Especially in hashtag form! That multiplies any burn. The establishment’s Twitter operator spotted Matsu’s peeved message, and within minutes was on the horn with the bar–and out she went.
How’d she take it? Not well:
Left @DownHouseHTX in tears after GM called up & asked the bartender to hand me the phone. He proceeded to curse a me & ask me to leave. Wow
Some interesting questions raised here. Calling your bartender a jackoff to his face would result in an understandable Get the hell out. But what if you mentioned it quietly to someone next to you? That happens all the time–and as a private conversation, it’s none of the bartender’s business.
But Twitter — Twitter is different. It straddles a bizarre line between private and public. Presumably, Matsu wanted to share with her friends that she was being served by a jackoff. But she knew it’d be accessible by anyone — including the restaurant’s owner. Can you equate online rudeness with being an IRL asshole? I hope not, because I say terrible, terrible things online. Terrible things that would likely leave me banished from every watering hole short of an actual watering hole. And even then, I’m sure those places monitor their Twitter feeds by now. [HoustonPress via Village Voice]
Photo: Simone van den Berg/Shutterstock
Andrew
Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 9:44 AMDoing a proper mention of @DownHouseHTX was probably her downfall. I bet she would have gone unnoticed had she deleted the @ symbol.
Paul
Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 11:16 AMAngry tweet time! :p I’m rollin’ and trollin’
Gomisan
Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 12:18 PMThat is just pure bad publicity for the establishment. Very poor handling of customer dissatisfaction.
If a customer is dissatisfied with the service of one of your employees you need to look at the employee as a potential problem, not the customer.
Mr Biggles
Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 12:25 PMWhat kind of high horse are you on…?
Customer must complain through appropriate channels first.
bazuden
Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 12:53 PMHer tweet isn’t much different than calling out ‘the bartender is a jackoff’ in the middle of the bar.
Even if the bartender was being a dick, she deserved to be kicked out. If she had a real problem with him, she should have taken it up with the manager. Then bag them after she’s left.
Duey Cumalot
Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 2:49 PMThe Manager really showed her… Once She got kicked out there is no way in hell she would think of tweeting like mad about his “establishment” and how bad the service is.
If the retard was so worried about the adverse publicity her tweet was going to draw then the worst thing he could have done was exactly what he did.
Maybe he should have told the bartender to find out why she was so upset, and maybe given her a free drink to make up for whatever the cause of her opinion. It would have made her happier and if she is the type to tweet about her everymove she would likely have tweeted about her new found satisfaction.
Jamie
Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 1:40 PMMeh, this is news? I hope she didn’t have to pay her bill.
David Shears
Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 5:29 PM@DownHouseHTX – Welcome to the Streisand Effect
Seriously, this needs to become required reading in every Management course/degree
Never, ever feed the trolls